Bison Burgers, for Humanity's Sake

Published: October 5, 2003

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If the world is still amazed at the size of that gift, Mr. Turner says he does not understand why. To him, it was a logical progression for a philanthropist. In the early days, ''like everybody else I gave away the 5 percent of the foundation's value that the law required,'' Mr. Turner said. ''Then I realized you can give away everything if you want to.''

Why the United Nations? Mr. Turner said he had been fascinated by it since childhood. ''I remember watching Nikita Khrushchev bang his shoe on the podium at the U.N. and thinking it was a place to blow off steam,'' he said, referring to an incident in the 1950's when a speech by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of Britain sent Khrushchev into a rage. ''I figure when they are screaming and hollering at each other, they are not throwing bombs.''

''I like gallantry, and the U.N. was an idealistic thing,'' Mr. Turner said. ''I was inspired by things like the Round Table and King Arthur. '' But even Mr. Turner's advisers were stunned by the plan he formulated roughly 48 hours before he was to receive an award from the United Nations Association of the United States of America.

''I was worried, I had nothing to say and I was getting this big award in front of all these people,'' Mr. Turner recalled. ''So I was thinking what could I talk about when I started to think, well, I'll buy the U.S. debt to the U.N., at a discount, maybe, like a repo man.''

AT the time, Congress had withheld roughly $1 billion in dues that the United States owed to the United Nations. ''Imagine, the U.N.'s biggest member was a deadbeat,'' Mr. Turner said. ''If you go to a country club, your name is posted if you don't pay.''

Mr. Turner learned quickly that an individual cannot simply give money to the United Nations, so his advisers created the United Nations Foundation as the conduit for his money. The United Nations Fund for International Partnerships serves as a liaison office between the United Nations and the foundation, suggesting projects for it to finance.

Although his overall pledge generated big headlines, the grants that his foundation makes are generally for small, innovative programs that would not otherwise receive financial support from the United States. One of his projects is the Equator Initiative, a package of programs aimed at reducing poverty and preserving the vast biological and ecological wealth in the countries around the Equator. Local nonprofit organizations and communities submit their programs for consideration, and the United Nations Foundation, with the United Nations, selects the best. Last year, seven prizes of $30,000 each were awarded and additional grants were made later to help spread word of practical solutions, build business and financial expertise among local small businesses and create an educational campaign.

Mr. Turner said he now spends about 50 percent of his ''thinking time'' on philanthropy. But as much as he loves the spotlight, he runs his foundation the way he always ran his businesses: he is hands off on day-to-day issues. He describes his role as ''a banana, just one of the bunch.''

But $1 billion makes for a big banana, and he periodically exercises his power. For instance, the United Nations Development Program submitted a proposal that the foundation help underwrite a project to prod the Angolan government to spend more of its oil income on social welfare. ChevronTexaco, the oil giant, would have been a partner in the project.

The foundation's staff and the United Nations advisory board that vets proposals liked the idea, but Mr. Turner opposed it. During a dinner with the foundation's executive committee, Mark Malloch Brown, the administrator of the United Nations Development Fund, presented the plan. ''To the audience of one, it bombed completely,'' Mr. Malloch Brown said. ''The snag in the carpet was that we forgot that Ted hates oil companies because of his absolute environment commitments.''

How does the United Nations feel about Mr. Turner today? Mr. Malloch Brown recalled a lunch to honor Mr. Turner on the fifth anniversary of his gift. ''The room was mesmerized,'' he said. ''Ted is outspoken, vulgar, strategic and big. They are tactical, small and buttoned down. The community is mesmerized and seduced by him. Of course, they think individual ideas are a bit wacky. But he is a wild force of nature at a polite tea party.''

Mr. Turner is also proud of the leverage that his gift has had in opening other coffers to the United Nations.

''The greatest thing about the Turner gift was that it built a network for us,'' said Amir A. Dossal, executive director of the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships. ''Many of the organizations like Gates and the World Bank that came to us through the United Nations Foundation now also become our partners independently.''

Whether Mr. Turner can live up to his commitments to two other foundations is far less certain. In 2001, he pledged shares worth $250 million to his Nuclear Threat Initiative, aimed at deterring nuclear proliferation. But by the time the organization needed his money, AOL Time Warner stock had started its tailspin.

Mr. Turner has never handed the shares he has pledged to underwrite his philanthropy to the beneficiaries, preferring to preserve the potential upside to finance future charitable endeavors.